


Resilience

by hope27



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope27/pseuds/hope27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Episode 1x18, Oliver finds Felicity dealing with the aftermath of failing to find the location of the last person taken by "The Savior."  He finds himself wanting to know more about Felicity Smoak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resilience

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr @ hopedreamlovepray.tumblr.com.
> 
> Review and feedback is always appreciated! I love to hear what people think! :) Thanks for reading!

Oliver gently took the arrow from Felicity’s trembling fingers.

He’d come back to the Foundry to find her standing over by the table where he worked on his arrows. She was studying one, turning it over and over in her hands, and he could see the faraway look in her eyes.

When she raised her eyes to meet his, he knew she was far from okay. Her eyes were damp, the tear tracks that streaked down her face barely visible in the dim lighting of the room, but he saw them.

And suddenly all his bravado was gone. Seeing her looking so helpless and broken caused a tightness in his chest. He didn’t like his usually bright-eyed Felicity so lost. 

He wanted to reach out to her in that moment. The urge to comfort her was overwhelming, but he wasn’t quite sure how. It’d been so long since he’d done this – especially with someone of the opposite sex who wasn’t family. Five years ago, he would have run as far as he could in the other direction. Today, he knew he would never do that to her.

He tried telling her it wasn’t her fault, willing her to believe him. Because it wasn’t. 

She didn’t believe him, he could tell. The moment she started talking about her personal life and being alone, a wave of sadness rushed over him, burying him in a series of memories. He tried to tread through them, to stay with Felicity, but they were too overwhelming and he had to step away before the darkness pulled him completely under.

Walking a few steps away from her, he blew out a long deep, guttural breath and allowed himself to get lost back on that island. Images of Slade and Yao Fei were interspersed with their attempt to barter their way off the island. They had succeeded and failed at the same time during that mission. They’d rescued Yao Fei’s daughter, but lost their bartering chip. His time on the island had taught him many things. One of them was that, sometimes, you lose.

He almost forgot Felicity was there until her sniffle caught his attention, and he shook his head to clear out the memories that hung like cobwebs in the back of his mind. 

Turning back towards the blonde who still stood behind him, he watched her. Her shoulders sagged in defeat, her arms folded tightly against her stomach as if trying to ward off all of the emotions that he could see running through her eyes.

It amazed him that seeing her like this affected him so much. His IT girl – that’s all she was supposed to be when he started asking for her help. But that had all changed somewhere in the moments they shared in her office and, now, here at the Foundry. Felicity Smoak wasn’t just the brilliant IT girl; she was his friend, someone he cared for and had an intense need to protect regardless of the inner-strength she had already shown she had.

He can still remember the absolute fear that gripped him when he heard Helena in the background of her message last week. He’d broken every speed limit in town to get to Felicity’s office in record time, ignoring the security guards that tried to stop him from entering the building until he forcefully reminded them who he was. 

He watched her silently while she lifted a shaking hand to wipe away an errant tear. Deciding he couldn’t see her like this anymore, he rounded the table, coming to stand directly in front of her.

She craned her head up to look at him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. He could see the circles under her eyes, and realized that she was still wearing her clothes from the previous day. She hadn’t even been home. She’d stayed here, working, trying to find this person who was wreaking havoc on the Glades.

“Why don’t you go upstairs to my office and lie down on the couch for a while,” he suggested softly, knowing he would make sure she wasn’t disturbed. 

Felicity quickly shook her head, “I can’t sleep. Not now.”

Oliver nodded in understand, although he wished she would try. Taking a deep breath, he decided on another tactic.

“Do you want to go back to the computers and see what other information we can find on this bastard?” he asked quietly, thinking that maybe working to take down this criminal would help ease her mind.

She shook her head. “I can’t go back over there. Not yet…”

He furrowed his brow, trying to decipher the meaning behind her words. He glanced at her and then back to the other side of the Foundry to where the desk of computers sat, the screens glowing. Normally, Felicity didn’t wander too far from her computers. That was her domain and she stayed in it because it was her safe place. But now, she was as far away as she could be from the machines.

Narrowing his eyes, it suddenly dawned upon him that she was avoiding the computers, avoiding her safe haven. This experience had taken the control she usually felt there. It had shaken her feeling of safety.

He understood that feeling all too well.

Looking back at her, he realized she had picked up another arrow and was studying it again, running her fingers all the way up to the sharp tip and back. 

“Do you know why I decided to learn how to use a bow and arrow?” he asked quietly, hoping she would follow what he was about to try to explain to her.

She looked up at him, shaking her head, big blue eyes filled with so much emotion he almost couldn’t breathe. 

Swallowing around the lump that formed in his throat at her expression, he continued, “I can control everything about it; the distance, the speed, the aim. I can control all of it by my actions. Most weapons don’t allow you that kind of control.”

Her eyes followed his to the table where his bow laid; he reached for it, the weight of it familiar and comforting in his hands. She reached out a hand and ran her fingers over the contours of it, but said nothing.

Carefully, Oliver covered her hand, stopping it’s movement and pulling her focus back to him.

“You feel that same control when you are at a keyboard, don’t you?” He murmured, noting the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers.

She nodded in response, eyes fluttering up to meet his in the dimly lit room. 

“I type in commands and the computer responds. It’s simple, easy…at least to me,” she whispered, voice breaking, “At least it was.”

Oliver squeezed her fingers, relishing the contact with another person. Days like today were hard, even for him. And once again, he was thankful that he had Felicity and Diggle in this with him. It was too hard doing it alone. Being alone. 

“This wasn’t an error you typed into the computer. You were giving me locations, and I trust your ability enough to know that you were doing it right. Somehow this guy was able to change his locations…”

“But that’s just it,” Felicity cried, interrupting him and pulling her hand away. Her hands flew to her head and she began furiously rubbing her temples. “I re-traced his signal twenty times and it was the right one. But it just kept jumping locations like he was constantly moving, and I don’t know how that could be. There are no bus lines or cars that he could have been on that would be that dark. Plus, it was too steady to be someplace like the back of a van with corners and stoplights. It just doesn’t make any sense. And this time, I didn’t have the right commands to give the computer.”

“So you’ll figure it out,” Oliver prodded her, liking the spark that was returning to her, but all the comment did was earn him a glare. 

“Don’t you think I’ve tried,” she choked out. “I’ve spent the last hour racking my brain for a way someone could transfer their cell signals like that. But there is no logical explanation that I can come up with…And that man died because I couldn’t figure it out. He died because I wasn’t fast enough or good enough at what I do…”

Tears began spilling from her eyes again, and Oliver quickly reached out a hand, cupping his fingers behind her head and pulling her against his body. He felt her crash into him, and she let go then, crying into his shoulder, her fingers clutching his jacket tightly.

He closed his eyes, his heart aching at her pain. He had wanted to protect her from this, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to. It was bound to happen at some point. Sometimes, you lose, and she needed to learn this eventually. He just hoped she could see that the good outweighed the bad; the wins totaled more than the losses. Pressing his fingers against her hair, he let her cry, trying to ignore how natural it felt – just to hold her.

After a few moments, she pulled back, wiping furiously at her cheeks as she stepped away from his embrace, and he could see the redness in her cheeks. She was embarrassed that she had let him see her like this. 

If only she knew that he was glad she had let him in; that she trusted him enough to show him her fears.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “I don’t know what came over me. I can do this. I just…I need to figure this out.”

He watched as her eyes narrowed and could almost see her resolve build. “I will figure this out,” she stated decidedly.

“Of course you will,” he told her, using his thumb to wipe one last tear off her cheek, pride swelling within him at her resilience. This was his Felicity. 

The corners of her mouth lifted in small smile as she looked down, fidgeting with her shirt.

“Thank you, Oliver,” she finally whispered, glancing back up at him. 

He could hear the sincerity in her voice, and he felt a smile form on his own lips. “Anytime, Felicity.”

Neither said another word as she turned and headed back to the computers. He followed, standing behind her as she sat in her chair once more.

He heard her take a deep breath before she began to type, her fingers flying furiously over the keyboard.

He found his eyes wandering from the computer screen to her face. For the first time, he began to wonder about her life outside of her job at Queen Consolidated and her work with him. She mentioned that she didn’t have a boyfriend, and from the tone of her voice, it almost seemed like she really didn’t have too many people to talk to at all. He couldn’t deny that she was a hard worker, and he realized that with her spending most of her nights and evenings at the Foundry with he and Diggle, that didn’t leave much time for a social life. But she had to have friends. Who wouldn’t want to be her friend? He realized he also knew nothing about her family. And suddenly he wanted to know these things. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to learn what made her Felicity Smoak.

Watching her work, a smile on her face as she lifted the sound file from the video and started an analysis on it, he realized he wanted to be a person that she told about her day. He wanted to be her friend, her confidant. And he would make sure she knew that she wasn’t alone; that she had him.


End file.
